this is an excellent history of transit in BC if you haven't read it!

I'm really coming to agree with the argument @denisagar.bsky.social makes here. frequent transit that sevces more areas is far more important than free transit.

Ride with us on the #5 Willows from Fisherman’s Wharf to Willows Beach. We’ll talk transit and then enjoy the live music at 2pm. Bring a chair or blanket for the park. actionnetwork.org/events/ride-... #yyj

Don't have to look far for examples of HOV lanes being bad for transit. TransLink's 555, a route with 99% HOV lanes, has peak direction runtimes padded to **double** what offpeak conditions require. Very few other routes have to deal with that level of variance. 99% transit priority btw.

Transit construction costs are the “price of living in a democracy today, as opposed to an autocracy”? Maybe versus the 1960s (poetically). But we were even building much more cheaply in 2007! Are France, Spain, and Korea (lower cost countries today) dictatorships?

I wrote this article 12 years ago. Nothing has changed. Horodniceanu and Prendergast are gone, but new transit leaders across the US and Canada are still playing dumb (or actually are??) about this. It’s very depressing if you care about transit! nextcity.org/urbanist-new...

For the Swartz Bay connection, the 70 is already about as good as it can be short of the bus actually driving onto the ferry. The problem is with onward connections. A 70 going to the 6AM ferry existing doesn't mean anything if your local Core route doesn't start running for another 1-2 hours.

Better buses on both sides of the ferry can help us increase foot passengers and move more people. #yyj

Vancouver SHOULD dream big -10,000 new units of subsidized housing -SkyTrain to UBC -Gondola to SFU -100% more bus service (as in TransLink's plan) -An intercity network that gets you anywhere in the province, car-free

Congrats to all of the people who have worked so hard to brand Vancouver as "towers full of vacant luxury condominiums" I guess. Anyway, here's the map from 2025's Empty Homes Tax report. Once again, very little empty, with the mansion hoods in the SW leading the pack. vancouver.ca/files/cov/20...

There has been significant growth in the Greater Victoria region over the past decade and with population growth and transit trips continuing to increase, BC Transit is planning ahead for the additional infrastructure needed to maintain and expand our fleet and transit service. #yyj

Susan's speech at our Race the Bus event 🚌 #yyj #racethebus

Much to say about this article but I'll start with the claims that kids don't or can't live in "skyscrapers" (the building under discussion is 15 storeys) when the census data show that such neighbourhoods have way more kids than nearby low-rise. (left: land use, right: kids/km^2)

The transit cost problem feels so hard to advocate for. It’s easy to say “fund transit more”. Much harder: “so, Italy and Korea and others build transit more cheaply. Yes, that much cheaper. It’s because of consultants and risk management and standardization and overbuilt stations…”

If you walk, bike, or roll through Oak Bay, please help us urge our council to prioritize safe streets for all. www.oakbayforall.ca/blog/safe-st...

On Friday, we proved that even buses running ahead of schedule are still too slow. BC Transit, the City of Victoria, and the District of Colwood are the institutions that need to step up. Together, we will keep push for a better, safer, more reliable city. #yyj #racethebus

If you want a microcosm of why mode share is what it is in #yyj and why transit needs help to be a more competitive option, look no further:

Interview on @cfax1070.bsky.social while we raced. www.iheart.com/podcast/1300...

Not just dedicated lanes, but also for buses to not get stuck at red lights and behind turning cars! We will not be able to achieve a 20% speed increase on Douglas without addressing these challenges.

Yes, the one critique about Texan housing is that the homes are too small

This person downplays European comparisons for high-speed rail in Canada by saying that “Europe built their railways long ago … it’s like they’ve always been there”. Fun fact: the largest high-speed rail network in Europe is in Spain. They opened their first line in... 1992.

So asking rents are at about mid-2022 levels. And still far above 2019. And know what people said about Vancouver's housing market then? "Housing crisis." The fact that rents are down a bit from their peak, but still at crisis levels, means govt needs to do more, not pat themselves on the back.

When people are asked if they want their taxes to go up to pay for better transit, they usually say yes

We need transit riders in particular for responses for the Interurban project. This is one of the worst spots for transit delay in the entire region, and Transit has **already** had to cut service multiple times due to buses being stuck in traffic, **solely** due to this intersection.

Good news! Today, Vancouver City Council passed a motion signaling its support for a low-income transit pass across Metro Vancouver. We will continue campaigning on this issue throughout June, culminating in a rally on July 1 at noon at Metrotown Station.

Details on how moving chains interact with bedrooms will depend on housing stock and household composition. Here is the Metro Vancouver breakdown, lots of opportunity for households in 3+ bedrooms to split up or downsize into 1 or 2 bedroom homes.

I find this shocking. 60% of Canadians say they feel forced to own a car to access their daily needs! There is HUGE pent-up demand for better transportation options. Paraphrasing @lorinah.bsky.social: people are just not all that jazzed about spending their days in a car. survey.mobilizingjustice.ca

Toronto’s transit cost disease has hit… metal fences. Just a reminder that $2M CAD is about the cost of half height PSGs for one platform in Hong Kong. Then we use NYC to justify our wild cost estimates for actual screen doors. The incuriosity and Anglo echo-chamber here is astounding.

Can you outrun the 95 “Rapid” bus? On June 12 at 4:45pm, we are racing the bus from the Legislature to City Hall to highlight how Douglas St congestion slows transit to a crawl. Sign up to run, or be a cheerleader: actionnetwork.org/forms/volunt... #yyj #racethebus

Paris’ RER is a perfect example of solving phone call problems. Instead of duplicating infrastructure because different agencies controlled it, Paris made sharing work. It saved a fortune and created Europe’s most impressive regional rail network. open.substack.com/pub/infrasto...

After aggressive land use reforms aimed at increasing supply, 20% of New Zealand townhouses resales are now at a loss www.rnz.co.nz/news/busines...

I spoke to Vancouver council tonight in opposition to this motion. ABC can't claim that allowing methane in homes is a pro-housing measure, then immediately move to savage multiplexes to cater to quell specious aesthetic concerns. Part of my remarks:

This is great. We need more human story explanations like this. Just pointing at data and research fails to reach a lot of people.

Yes please. But: local land use needs to be permissive enough to ramp up building. If municipalities are restrictive a cut in fees doesn’t get passed on. We need both a culture of saying yes to housing and lower fees www.biv.com/news/real-es...

Hahahahahaha. We compared to the transit agency with the worst costs on the planet and found that our numbers were in the same ballpark so it's ok.

Capital cost escalation is an existential problem in the transit industry right now and we don't have enough engineers screaming from the rooftops about it. Where are we headed if we keep swallowing these cost increases unquestioningly? Is this happening with highway infrastructure too?

Unfortunately this applies to more than #yyj. Stay tuned for more on how we can fix this funding model!

Caleb Crookes, vice-president of transit advocacy group Better Transit YYJ, said his organization welcomes the change. “It would have been excellent had that been slightly higher on the to-do list, but overall, I think I speak for everyone when I say that we’re all excited for this.” #yyj #transit

www.northerndevelopment.bc.ca/wp-content/u... The existing service has a total budget of <$3m a year -- and only funded for another year. We're willing to blow a multi-billion dollar hole in our budget to axe the carbon tax, but not willing to spend the chump change to improve intercity transit.

bettercolumbia.ca/2026/04/27/t... Our transit funding model is broken. Either funding party can unilaterally deny transit expansion. And of course, the Province decided to actively veto every BCT expansion requested this year, including for exact election promises like Sea to Sky.

This is one of the biggest transit delay spots in the network, so make your voice heard and tell Saanich staff you want no delay for buses! hello.saanich.ca/.../interurb... #yyj #BCTransit

Of all the North American cities studied, Vancouver's buses have the second highest variation in travel time throughout the day. This should set off alarm bells that we have a lot of work to do when it comes to making buses reliable.

Difficulty in getting airport service shows region needs a new funding model bettertransityyj.ca/2026/05/12/d...

Good that this targets a very valid pain point of poor service span to YYJ without adversely screwing existing transit users. We need all levels of government to step up and properly invest in transit before transit staff is once again forced to consider robbing Peter to pay Paul.

“The best-used euro is not to reduce the price but to increase the offer,” says Kehrer. “Because what’s the use of a cheap ticket if I still can’t travel when I want to?”

I think Vancouver's become too reliant on using unrelated roadwork as an opportunity to build bike lanes. I argue that it doesn't save that much money, does little to quell local opposition, and often fails to create network effects.

If I were the Premiere of a province with a horrific housing shortage & falling lumber demand, I would simply legalize 18-storey mass timber apartments in the urban core of major cities. www.cbc.ca/news/cana...

It's happening. On Friday, 5/15, we are soft-launching our Transit Priority Atlas 1.0 website. Come join us in person at 370 Jay Street to explore this knowledge-sharing tool and get lost in circulation planning layouts and intersection management strategies for better on-street transit.

Of all the ways to make a building more interesting - ornament, different materials, artwork - articulation has got to be the worst. Each of the extra corners from the building shifting in and out is a potential leak, and the yellow planes are extra walls that reduce energy efficiency.